The present invention relates to an image processing method and apparatus and, in particular, discloses an Image Warping System.
The present invention relates to the creation of images, preferably photographic images having xe2x80x9cwarpedxe2x80x9d characteristics.
Digital image warping has recently become a very popular form of image processing. One popular form normally comprises warping a video segment such that characteristics within the video segment undergo transformations, etc. Warping also is utilised to transform individual still images to produce interesting effects.
Unfortunately, warping systems generally utilised high end computers and are generally inconvenient in that an image must be scanned into the computer processed and then printed out. This is generally inconvenient, especially where images are captured utilising a hand held camera or the like as there is a need to, at a later stage, transfer the captured images to a computer system for manipulation and to subsequently manipulate them in accordance with requirements.
In accordance with a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method of warping of producing a warped image from an input image, said method comprising the steps of:
inputting a warp map for an arbitrary output image having predetermined dimensions Axc3x97B, each element of said warp map mapping a corresponding region in a theoretical input image to a pixel location of said arbitrary output image corresponding to the co-ordinate location of said element within said warp map;
scaling said warp map to the dimensions of said warped image so as to produce a scaled warp map;
for substantially each element in said scaled warp map, calculating a contribution region in said input image through utilization of said element value and adjacent element values; and
determining an output image colour for a pixel of said warped image corresponding to said element from said contribution region.